The gender pay gap in Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D., Mass.) office is nearly 10 percent wider than the national average, meaning women in the Massachusetts Democrat’s office will have to wait longer than most women across the country to recognize Equal Pay Day.

Equal Pay Day, created two decades ago by the National Committee on Pay Equity, is scheduled by using the Census Bureau annual unadjusted gender pay gap to determine how far into the next year women would have to work to match annual earnings of men. Last year’s figures, showing that women earned 79.6 percent of what men earned, put Equal Pay Day on Tuesday April 4, more than three months into the calendar year.

However, women working for Warren were paid just 71 cents for every dollar paid to men during the 2016 fiscal year, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis…

For example, Warren’s former chief of staff Mindy Myers and her male replacement Dan Geldon were not included because neither worked the full year.

Among employees employed the entire year, only one woman, Warren’s director of scheduling, earned a six-figure salary, at $100,624.88.

Comments

I’d like to see Warren recognize her folly and in an attempt to rectify it…take back the difference in wages she paid the males to even it out. What’s the called when you take back something you had previously given out?

Even though the titles are all “director”, Warren will probably attribute the pay differences to job responsibilities, experience level (overall experiences as well as at the particular job), education.

Of course, those are the criteria that all managers use to set pay levels.

The lower level staff (reception, secretary, office manager, etc) are probably all women and have less responsibilities than those in the “director” level.

Salaries are determined by markets … just like anything else one wants to buy. How much do you have to pay a person to slog in day after day and do the work you want done. That’s it.

In practice it means people who are harder to replace are more expensive if their skills are in demand. A company’s head of nuclear reactor research might be very hard to replace as there are a relatively small number of people who can do the job, and they already work for your competitors. The lady who cleans the bathrooms is very easy to replace; a phone call or two and you could have another one in a matter of hours. But that doesn’t make her job less important; it’s less “valuable” because qualified people are in vastly greater supply.

Living in Massachusetts and attempting to change our Congress critters is a frustrating experience. However, from now on when Lizzy talks about the pay discrepanciy, I fully expect her to point to herself as an employer as proof of her premise. I will probably see that when my congress critters get changed.